


Five Nights Someone Delivers Grantaire's Food to Enjolras, and One Night Enjolras Delivers Himself to Grantaire

by sevenimpossiblethings



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Food, Getting Back Together, Grantaire is a good ex, M/M, Post-Break Up, he's an even better boyfriend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-11
Updated: 2017-03-11
Packaged: 2018-10-02 20:39:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10226864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenimpossiblethings/pseuds/sevenimpossiblethings
Summary: Enjolras and Grantaire break up. Enjolras's friends keep showing up with food that they didn't cook.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a couple of weeks ago as a quick warm up challenge to get in Enjolras's head. Thanks to beginningwithA for looking it over for me, even though I never asked if she could/wanted to and basically shoved it at her and ran. 
> 
> Prompt from this post break-up au [list](http://nadiahilker.tumblr.com/post/146473062490/post-break-up-au) by nadiahilker: "i know you can’t cook for shit so i’ve been bringing you dinner every night, just, y’know, to keep you alive."

The first night, it’s Combeferre who brings the Pyrex dish.

Enjolras is curled up on the couch, exhausted by the fourteen-step round trip to buzz Combeferre into the building, and grateful that Combeferre has an emergency key so he can let himself into Enjolras’s apartment.

Enjolras aggressively does not let himself think about the extra key that’s sitting on his hall table, right where Grantaire left it the day before.

“Hey,” says Combeferre, shutting the door behind him.

“Hey.” His voice is quiet. (And pathetic and needy and—)

“I brought you dinner,” Combeferre says. He holds up the Pyrex container in one hand.

“Not hungry.”

“Have you eaten today?”

Enjolras shrugs, as much as it is possible to shrug while lying on his side, legs tucked loosely against his chest.

“Enjolras.”

“There was half a baguette left,” says Enjolras. “So, yeah, I’ve eaten.”

There is a pointed silence from Combeferre.

Enjolras sighs and rolls into a sitting position.

“It’s moussaka. I’ll heat it up for you,” says Combeferre.

Enjolras is startled enough to stand and follow Combeferre into the kitchen.

“You can’t cook,” Enjolras says. “Did you spend the day learning how to cook so you could bring me _moussaka_?”

Combeferre stills. “No. Grantaire made it and asked me to bring it over.”

Enjolras’s heart thumps painfully. It feels like it’s rising through his throat, like he’s going to throw up.

“What,” he croaks.

Combeferre turns away, starts the microwave, and opens a cabinet, taking down two glasses and one plate.

When he looks at Enjolras again, he says, “You can’t cook, either. Grantaire always cooks for both of you. Or—cooked, anyway.”

“But,” Enjolras starts. His voice is raspy, a combination of tears and disuse. “We’re. We broke up.”

Combeferre fills the glasses with water from the tap and presses one into Enjolras’s hands.

“You picked a good one,” Combeferre says.

“We broke up,” Enjolras whispers.

The microwave beeps.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” Enjolras says, as Combeferre fills a plate for him. 

 

The second night, it’s Courfeyrac.

Courfeyrac doesn’t have a key, so Enjolras has to let him in.

His eyes land immediately on the wrapped pie tin in Courfeyrac’s hand.

“Quiche Lorraine, with salmon,” says Courf, heading straight for the kitchen. “You’ll have to provide the vegetables yourself. Grantaire said there should still be some frozen beans left?”

Enjolras has been _so good_ about not crying today.

He hasn’t really done anything else today—hasn’t done laundry, hasn’t swept, hasn’t checked his work email, hasn’t discarded the disgusting pile of tissues that accumulated the day before by the couch—but he hasn’t cried.

But then Courfeyrac pulls out the damn green beans and he can’t, he just can’t, and he’s crying again, that awful, choking kind of crying, his breath hitching as the tears roll uninhibited down his cheeks and drip onto his shirt.

“Oh, honey,” says Courfeyrac, who, to his credit, puts down the beans before pulling Enjolras into a hug. “Shh.”

Courfeyrac rubs circles on Enjolras’s back, and makes low, soothing noises, and basically demonstrates his good hugging skills.

Enjolras hates him, a little bit. It’s not Courfeyrac’s hug he wants.

“I had the shittiest Sunday,” he manages. He’s getting snot on Courfeyrac’s shirt, he’s sure. “I had. The _shittiest_ Sunday, and just. He had this stupid rule about lazy Sunday mornings, you know? Sleeping in, and then we’d go out for coffee, or pick up something from the boulangerie, and if it was nice we’d go for a walk and. Be together.”

“I know, I know,” murmurs Courfeyrac.

“It’s been a really long time since I haven’t had that,” Enjolras says, pressing his forehead into Courfeyrac’s shirt.

“Oh, honey,” Courfeyrac says again.

“And the—” Enjolras steps away from Courf and jabs a finger toward the quiche. “Why is he _doing_ this?”

“You set off the smoke alarm once a week when you and Ferre shared an apartment,” Courfeyrac says. “And I mean you specifically, because that was when Ferre went through his no-hot-food phase, remember, because he was so fed up with burning everything?”

“But _why_ ,” Enjolras repeats. “I’m not—I’m not his problem anymore.”

“You were never a problem to him. You were his boyfriend.”

Enjolras shrugs.

“Hey, now,” says Courfeyrac.

“I _was_ his boyfriend. You can’t tell me I wasn’t also a problem.”

“Every couple—”

“That’s just it, isn’t it?” Enjolras says. “We’re not now.”

“Let me make you some beans,” says Courfeyrac.

The quiche is light and warm and why did Grantaire have to substitute in salmon? Why did he do this at all?

 

The third night, it’s Jehan and a pasta dish whose name Enjolras doesn’t catch.

Enjolras had to work today, his eyes puffy and red-rimmed from tiredness, and one of his co-workers had asked after Grantaire and Enjolras had had to hide in the bathroom for ten minutes after telling her about the break up.

Jehan reads him Italian poetry while he eats, which is okay, because Enjolras doesn’t speak Italian, so it computes as comforting white noise.

 

The fourth night, it’s Joly, Musichetta, Bossuet, and sushi from the place down the road.

“He told us it was take-out night,” Musichetta says, clucking sympathetically.

“I always have staff meetings until late, and his cartoon deadline is Wednesday morning,” Enjolras says automatically.

The good thing about all three of them being there is that Enjolras doesn’t have to talk; they can carry the conversation without his input.

Joly makes him chamomile tea before they leave, and makes him promise to go to bed early.

Enjolras drinks the tea and is in bed by ten, but he lies awake for a long time.

The bed is too big and too empty and too cold and all of those other terrible, useless clichés and it’s not fair that he still gets Grantaire’s food but doesn’t get Grantaire.

 

The fifth night, it’s Eponine and some kind of curry.

Enjolras is surprised to see her, because Eponine was always more Grantaire’s friend than his.

Eponine clearly has similar feelings on the matter, because she bangs his silverware door shut and then eyes him with obvious distaste as the curry heats up.

“I’m sorry,” Enjolras ventures.

Eponine folds her arms across her chest. “Yeah? What are you sorry for?”

“Making you come all the way over here to bring me dinner? Which you shouldn’t have to do because I should learn how to cook,” says Enjolras.

“Which I shouldn’t have to do because you two shouldn’t have broken up. But no, you broke up, and then Grantaire fucking enables you—”

“I didn’t ask him for this! I didn’t ask him to do this,” Enjolras says quickly. “I wouldn’t do that.”

“No, you’d starve.” Her tone is icy. “You haven’t asked him to stop, have you? Haven’t even texted him to say fucking thank you?”

He’s tried. He’s tried so many times since Combeferre brought moussaka that first night, but _thank you_ isn’t enough and nothing else he tries comes out right, so he never sends the texts.

“We agreed no contact,” Enjolras says in a small voice.

Eponine raises her eyebrows and nods at the curry on the stove.

“I wish he’d stop,” Enjolras blurts.

“Do you?”

“It makes everything harder.”

“He won’t even tell me why you broke up,” says Eponine. She dishes out the curry, prods Enjolras toward the table.

Enjolras stares down at his spoon. “We fought. It was—we said stupid things. Shitty things.”

“Have you tried apologizing?”

“He—” Enjolras stops. He shakes his head.

“One chance, Enjolras,” Eponine says, standing up.

“What?”

“I’m giving you once chance,” she says.

She sets two keys on the table and leaves.

 

Their weekly co-op produce basket is technically under Enjolras’s name, since the pickup location is in his neighborhood. They normally pick it up together. Enjolras can’t bear to tell Adeline, the distribution supervisor, what really happened, so he accepts her extra head of arugula and “best wishes for your poor sick boyfriend” with a jerky nod, guilt churning in his stomach. 

The bus driver on the route to Grantaire’s gives him a funny look, but luckily the bus is empty enough that no one begrudges his overflowing basket taking up an extra seat.

_There’s this boy, you see_ , Enjolras imagines explaining to a fellow passenger.

Maybe he should have picked up flowers, too.

He fumbles a bit at the door to Grantaire’s building and ends up dropping the apartment key into the basket. He sets the basket on the step, kneeling down to shift aside the vegetables until he can find the key. He’s only just stood up again when the door opens.

His heart catches—what if it’s one of their friends with another Pyrex dish, what if it’s _Grantaire_ —but it’s the man who lives in the apartment below Grantaire.

“Good evening,” Grantaire’s neighbor says, clearly recognizing him. 

“Good evening,” says Enjolras.

The man holds the door open for Enjolras, who picks up the basket and steps inside.

“Haven’t seen you in a while,” the neighbor says. “Ask him to move in already so we can have a neighbor who actually lives here, eh?” He winks.

“Um,” says Enjolras.

“Well, good night!” The man leaves.

Enjolras readjusts his grip on the basket before walking up to Grantaire’s third-floor apartment.

Outside Grantaire’s door, he stops, apartment key in hand.

_You’re doing this?_ he asks himself.

But he knows he is. He doesn’t want another week without Grantaire dancing to 1960s rock ‘n roll while cooking, another week without surprise doodles tucked into his lunch (like a five-year-old, sure, except these doodles feature a stick-figure Grantaire saying things like, “ _Your pants look hot. Enjolras, I like you a lot, xoxo, R_ ”), another week without Grantaire leaning against him on the couch, fiddling with Photoshop layers and complaining about his stylus while Enjolras types up the ABC’s newsletter. 

Enjolras unlocks the door and steps inside.

“Ep?” calls Grantaire, his voice coming from the direction of the kitchen. “Thanks for coming again, I know it’s out of your way.” 

Enjolras shuts the door and walks toward the kitchen.

“Different E,” he says, setting the basket down just inside the doorway.

Grantaire was facing away from the door, but at Enjolras’s voice he jerks around, dropping the knife he was holding.

“Careful!” Enjolras cries, as the knife clatters to the ground.

“Oh shit,” says Grantaire. “Oh, shit.” He doesn’t move, just stares at Enjolras from the other side of the kitchen.

“The knife,” Enjolras says. “You should—pick it up, please, I really don’t want to have to take you to the emergency room tonight.”

Grantaire picks up the knife, drops it into the sink. He turns to face Enjolras again. His face, so open with surprise moments ago, is blank now.

“What are you doing here, Apollo?” he asks.

Enjolras’s eyes flick down to the basket. “You’ve got the immersion blender.”

“What?”

“For soup…”

“Enjolras.”

“It’s the seventeenth,” Enjolras blurts. “It’s a Thursday, so it’s vegetable pick-up day, and it’s the seventeenth, so it’s date night, and. It’s date night, Grantaire.”

Their schedules are too full and varied to make a standing, weekly date night (Grantaire maintained that lazy Sundays were required rest periods that didn’t count as dates, just domesticity), but after a while, they’d settled on a monthly date night. If they managed to sneak in a night out in between, great, but most of the time their social activities revolved around the group. The seventeenth was reserved for the two of them. 

“We broke up,” Grantaire croaks. His eyes are wide.

“I’m sorry,” they say at the same time.

“I know you care about more than just the ABC—” Grantaire starts.

“I know your job’s important, too—”

“—and you’re not selfish—”

“—I shouldn’t have called you lazy, that was unfair and uncalled for—” Enjolras can feel the tears building behind his eyes again. “Please, please can we—can we try again? I missed you so much.”

“Do you forgive me, for all the shit I said?” Grantaire asks, cautious.

“Yes, yes, of course I do, I’m the one who—”

“No,” says Grantaire.

Enjolras can’t help it: there’s a terrible, hiccupping gasp because _no_.

“No, no, I meant,” Grantaire says in a rush, tripping over himself to cross the kitchen. “I didn’t mean _no_ , I meant we both said awful things and we can both be sorry and it was both of our faults, okay? We both fucked up.”

“You kept sending me food,” Enjolras says. “You kept—you just kept being wonderful and sending all of our friends to make sure I was eating even though I’d called you all those terrible names on Friday, and I just couldn’t understand why would you keep cooking for me—”

Grantaire steps into Enjolras’s space, his hand cupping Enjolras’s cheek. “You’d _literally_ die without me.”

Grantaire’s eyes are sparkling, but there’s a hesitancy, too. Enjolras gives a wet, shaky laugh.

“I would,” he says. “I would, please, can we try again?”

Grantaire tips Enjolras’s chin, kissing him gently even as his thumbs brush away the tears.

“Yeah,” he says. “We can do that.” 


End file.
